Holding shelf apparatus

ABSTRACT

The present invention relates to an holding shelf apparatus for strip-like material as is employed, for example, in connection with a tandem rolling mill.

[ 51 June 20, 1972 United States Patent Briggs et al.

[54] HOLDING SHELF APPARATUS [72] Inventors: Albert Theodore Briggs, Tarentum; Eu-

gene Henry Swisher, Verona, both of Pa.

[73] Assignee: United Engineering and Foundry Com- P Pittsburgh, Primary Examiner-Charles W. Lanham Assistant Examiner-R. M. Rogers Attomey-Henry C. Westin [22] Filed: June 15, 1970 [57] ABSTRACT The present invention relates to an holding shelf apparatus for strip-like material as is employed, for example. in connection with a tandem rolling mill.

21 J Appl. No.: 46,360

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I I Q Lu QM l E /A/l/A/7'0R$. Q U ALBERT 7: 88/665 EUGENE MSW/SHER HOLDING SHELF APPARATUS The disclosure of this invention comprises a pair of opposed shelves for supporting the edges of a strip above the passline of a rolling mill at the entry side thereof. Each shelf includes an upright frame for vertically guiding the shelves to and from the passline. Each shelf is made up of a number of vertical rollers that engage the opposite edges of the strip and a holddown arm for holding the strip against the shelves. The shelves are lowered to the mill passline by a piston cylinder assembly and are moved transversely by a combined tandem piston cylinder assembly-screw drive; one of the cylinder assemblies being employed to bring the shelves under the strip and the other cylinder assembly is used to center the strip relative to the center line of the mill.

In the past the leading end of the strip as it was brought to the entry guides of a rolling mill was first conveyed to hold shelves which supported the strip above the passline until the trailing end of a previous coil passed into the mill, after which the holding shelves were retracted or tilted to allow the strip, by virtue of its own weight, to fall onto an apron arranged in the mill passline for conveyance to the entry guide of the mill.

In operating the mill, and particularly a tandem mill, the lost time involved in starting a new coil is very critical. The reason for providing holding shelves is to enable the leading end to be held in readiness for quick feeding to the guides once the previous strip has passed therethrough. The past designs of holding shelves, however, did not always permit the strip to be guided properly into the mill. This was because the strip was allowed'to drop from a position above the mill passline and in so doing, there was nothing to prevent it from skewing and/or taking an improper attitude relative to the center line of the mill. Moreover, previous designs did not provide any positive way to center the strip prior to lowering it to the passline and, once centered, to hold it in its centered position.

It is, therefore, one of the objects of the present invention to provide an holding shelf apparatus that will assure that the strip will be centered and once centered, held in its center position when brought to the mill passline.

More particularly, the present invention provides an holding shelf having means for quickly supporting and centering the leading end of the strip and for holding the strip in its centered position while it is lowered to the passline of the mill or to other processing devices.

These objects as well as other features and advantages of the present invention will be better appreciated when the following description is read along with the accompanying drawings of which:

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of an holding shelf apparatus built in accordance with the present invention taken on lines 1--l of FIG. 2;

FIG. 2 is a plane view of the apparatus illustrated in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken on lines 3-3 of FIG. 2; and

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of an hydraulic system employed for the lifting piston cylinder assemblies of the shelves.

in referring to FIGS. 1 and 2 the arrows at the right indicate the direction of travel of the strip being paid ofl from a coil by means of an uncoiler, not shown. Also not shown is the strip entry guide which receives the leading end of the strip from the holding shelves and feeds it into the rolling mill. FIG. 1 does illustrate a pinch roll unit 10 arranged at the entry side of the holding shelves and consisting of a lower roll 11 and an upper roll 12. The upper roll is vertically positionable by a piston cylinder assembly 13, the function of which will be explained later.

With reference to the holding shelves l4 and 15, it will be appreciated that each shelf consists of an identical structure and for which reason only one will be described although in FIG. 4 the second shelf is illustrated. Between each shelf 14 and 15, centrally located just below the mill passline, which is legend in FIG. 3, there is provided a stationary apron 16. Referring for a moment to FIG. 3, which best shows the sup port structure for the shelf 15, there is illustrated an upright member 18 which includes a pair of guides 21 and 22 for slidably receiving a carriage 23. The upright member 18 is ultimately supported by a base member 24.

The carriage 23 includes an horizontal projecting apron 25 spaced-apart, freely rotatable rollers 26. The rollers are arranged so that the edges of the strip supported by the apron 25 can be engaged by the rollers. Towards the entry guide side of the shelf 15 there is provided a strip holddown unit, best shown in FIG. 1. It consists of a trunnion shaft 28 for pivotally supporting an arm 31, the arm being movable towards and away from the apron 25 by a piston cylinder assembly 32.

The entire carriage 23 is moved within the guides 21 and 22 by a piston cylinder assembly 33, shown best in FIG. 3, which shows the cylinder of the assembly connected to an upright member 34 which, in turn, is secured to the upright member 18 supportable by the base member 24.

Referring to the base-24 and FIGS. 2 and 3, it will be noted that the carriage 23 is adapted to be traversed towards and away from the adjacent edge of the strip. This movement is accomplished by three separate power means, the first being a screw nut drive unit 35 which is driven by a gear reducer 36 and a motor 37. The nut of the drive unit is carried by a platform member 38 which is movable on travel of the nut by the rotating screw and which serves to support the piston end of one of two tandemly arranged piston cylinder assemblies 41 and 42. The piston cylinder assembly 41 which is the smaller stroke cylinder is connected to the upright member 18, the cylinder 42 being carried by the member 38. In the illustrated form, the piston cylinder assembly 41 has a stroke of 4% inches while the piston cylinder assembly 42 has a stroke of 10 inches.

The carriage 23 is guided during its traverse movement by parallel guide rods 44 shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the rods being slidably supported in bearings carried by the base 24.

FIG. 4 illustrates the hydraulic inter-connecting system for the cylinders 33 that move the shelves vertically from a holding path which is legend in FIG. 3 to the mill passline. In order to employ standard commercial cylinders and yet provide that the pistons move at equal speeds, the piston cylinder assemblies 33 for each shelf are arranged so that their rods point in different directions and that the rod ends of the cylinders are directly inter-connected by a line 45.

Two additional lines 46 and 46a are provided which through a directional valve 47 are connected to the head ends of the piston cylinder assemblies 33. The valve is also associated with a pump 48 and a reservoir 49. In this way the valve can be positioned to admit fluid under pressure alternately to one or the other of the head ends of the cylinders, in which case the head end of the cylinder not being supplied fluid is vented to the reservoir 49 through the valve 47. As indicated in FIG. 4, fluid admitted to the head end of the drive side cylinder will cause both shelves 14 and 15 to raise, in which it will be appreciated that as thepiston at the drive side is raised the fluid in the rod end of this cylinder will be forced through line 45 to cause the piston of the operating side cylinder to rise at the same speed. In a similar manner fluid supplied to the head end of the operating side cylinder by the proper positioning of the valve 47 will cause both shelves to lower at the same speed, in which fluid will be again forced through the line 45, but in the opposite direction.

A brief description of the above-described holding shelf apparatus will now be given. Assuming that a strip is being fed to the mill over the apron 16 and that the upper pinch roll 12 and the shelves l4 and 15 are in the holding path position as shown in FIG. 3, in which case the shelves are preset, if not already in the desired position, by operating the screw drive nut units 35 to where the aprons 25 can be brought into supporting relationship with the edges of the strip on operation of the large stroke piston cylinder assemblies 42. This will position the rollers 26 of the carriages 23 a little less than 4% inches, the stroke of the piston cylinder assemblies 41. It should be noted that the traverse movement of the carriages by the screws 44 and the cylinders 41 and 42 will be synchronized, particularly that of the screws to assure that each shelf is equally positioned with respect to the center line of the mill. 0n operation of the piston cylinder assemblies4l, the rollers 26 will engage the opposite edges of the strip to center it relative to the center line of the mill. Once centered, the piston cylinder assemblies 32 of the holddown device will be operated to bring the arms 31 into engagement with the strip to hold it in its center position. When the trailing end of the previous strip has passed over the apron 16, the piston cylinder assemblies 33 are operated along with the cylinder 13 of the pinch roll unit to lower in unison the shelves l4 and and the upper pinch roll 12. As soon as the upper pinch roll engages the strip, the piston cylinder assemblies 32 and both of the tandem piston cylinder assemblies 41 and 42 can be operated to release the strip and retract the aprons 25 away from the strip leaving the strip supported by the apron 16 and held in its I center position by the pinch rolls 11 and 12.

In accordance with the provisions of the patent statutes, we have explained the principle and operation of our invention and have illustrated and described what we consider to represent the best embodiment thereof.

We claim:

1. A holding shelf apparatus for supporting strip-like material incident to the strip being fed into a desired path of travel, comprising:

a strip supporting member arranged to extend in a direction parallel to said path of travel,

means for moving said member from a position above said path of travel to a position where the strip is brought to said path,

means for moving said member when in a position above said path transverse of said path to bring the member into supporting relationship with a strip and for centering said member including means for holding the strip against said member after it has been centered and during said first movement.

2. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said strip supporting member includes a pair of opposed strip supporting shelves each having a surface for supporting a different one of the edges of the strip,

separate means for each shelf for moving the shelves in unison into said two positions with respect to said path of travel, and

separate means for each shelf for transversely moving said shelves in unison.

3. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 2 wherein said separate means for moving said shelves into said two positions, each comprise a piston cylinder assembly, and

said separate means for moving said shelves transversely each comprise a first and second piston cylinder assembly; one cylinder having a relatively long stroke for bringing the shelf into a supporting position with the strip and the other cylinder having a relatively short stroke to center the strip relative to said data position.

4. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 2 wherein each shelf has a separate means for holding the strip and which comprises:

5 an arm,

means for pivotally carrying said arm, and

a piston cylinder assembly connected to said arm to bring the arm into engagement with a strip supported by a shelf.

5. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 3, wherein 10 each shelf has a screw drive unit for moving said shelves transversely, and

means advanced by each of said screw drive units for carrying a difierent one of said first and second piston cylinder assemblies.

6. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said member comprises a vertically arranged frame,

a base for supporting said frame,

guide means formed on said frame for receiving and vertically guiding a carriage,

horizontal strip supporting shelves carried by said carriage,

a number of spaced vertically arranged strip edge guiding rollers carried by said carriage,

said means for moving said member into said two positions comprising,

a piston cyhnder assembly earned by said frame and connected to said carriage,

said means for transversely moving said member comprising a pair of tandemly arranged piston cylinder assemblies connected to and for moving said frame transversely relative to said base,

a platform for carrying said tandemly arranged piston cylinder assemblies, and

a screw driving unit supported by said base and connected to said platform for moving said platform transversely of said path of travel.

7. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 3 wherein said separate piston cylinder assemblies for moving said shelves into said two positions are arranged with the piston rods extending in opposite directions and wherein the piston rod sides and the cylinder sides of the cylinder assemblies are fluidly inter-connected.

8. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said strip support member comprises a pair of opposed strip supporting shelves, each having a surface for supporting a different edge of the strip, and wherein the means for moving said shelves to said path of travel includes means for placing said shelves in an aligned relationship in said position above the path of travel and further includes means for moving said shelves downwardly at substantially equal speeds from said position above the path of travel to said path of travel.

* l i i 

1. A holding shelf apparatus for supporting strip-like material incident to the strip being fed into a desired path of travel, comprising: a strip supporting member arranged to extend in a direction parallel to said path of travel, means for moving said member from a position above said path of travel to a position where the strip is brought to said path, means for moving said member when in a position above said path transverse of said path to bring the member into supporting relationship with a strip and for centering said member including means for holding the strip against said member after it has been centered and during said first movement.
 2. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said strip supporting member includes a pair of opposed strip supporting shelves each having a surface for supporting a different one of the edges of the strip, separate means for each shelf for moving the shelves in unison into said two positions with respect to said path of travel, and separate means for each shelf for transversely moving said shelves in unison.
 3. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 2 wherein said separate means for moving said shelves into said two positions, each comprise a piston cylinder assembly, and said separate means for moving said shelves transversely each comprise a first and second piston cylinder assembly; one cylinder having a relatively long stroke for bringing the shelf into a supporting position with the strip and the other cylinder having a relatively short stroke to center the strip relative to said data position.
 4. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 2 wherein each shelf has a separate means for holding the strip and which comprises: an arm, means for pivotally carrying said arm, and a piston cylinder assembly connected to said arm to bring the arm into engagement with a strip supported by a shelf.
 5. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 3, wherein each shelf has a screw drive unit for moving said shelves transversely, and means advanced by each of said screw drive units for carrying a different one of said first and second piston cylinder assemblies.
 6. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said member comprises a vertically arranged frame, a base for supporting said frame, guide means formed on said frame for receiving and vertically guiding a carriage, horizontal strip supporting shelves carried by said carriage, a number of spaced vertically arranged strip edge guiding rollers carried by said carriage, said means for moving said member into said two positions comprising, a piston cylinder assembly carried by said frame and connected to said carriage, said means for transversely moving said member comprising a pair of tandemly arranged piston cylinder assemblies connected to and for moving said frame transversely relative to said base, a platform for carrying said tandemly arranged piston cylinder assemblies, and a screw driving unit supported by said base and connected to said platform for moving said platform transversely of said path of travel.
 7. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 3 wherein said separate piston cylinder assemblies for moving said shelves into said two positions are arranged with the piston rods extending in opposite directions and wherein the piston rod sides and the cylinder sides of the cylinder assemblies are fluidly inter-connected.
 8. A holding shelf apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said strip support member comprises a pair of opposed strip supporting shelves, each having a surface for supporting a different edge of the strip, and wherein the means for moving said shelves to said path of travel includes means for placing said shelves in an aligned relationship in said position above the path of travel and further includes means for moving said shelves downwardly at substantially equal speeds from said position above the path of travel to said path of travel. 